Very similar to this is the king’s soliloquy on repentance, in act third, scene third.
What if this cursed hand Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood? Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens To wash it white as snow? . . . . Then I’ll look up; My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer Can serve my turn? . . . . Try what repentance can: What can it not? Yet what can it, when one can not repent.
Throughout the whole speech the mind of the guilty monarch fluctuates between hope and despair; and Hamlet, seeing him on his knees, exclaims: “now might I do it, pat; and now I’ll do it;” but again falls to moralizing, and puts it off to a more convenient season.
Hamlet’s first soliloquy, before he has seen the Ghost, (act first, scene second,) turns on the queen’s _inconstancy_ in forgetting his father and marrying his uncle so soon: “But two months dead!” “A beast that wants discourse of reason, would have mourned longer.” And his conversation with Horatio immediately after is to the same effect:
The funeral bak’d meats Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
In his interview with the queen in act third, scene fourth, where he compares the picture of his father with that of his uncle, he dwells on the same topic. See also the dumb show in act third, scene second, and the dialogue between the _Player King_ and _Player Queen_. Every line of these speeches illustrates the theme.
_P. King._ I do believe you think what now you speak; But, what we do determine oft we break. . . . . . . . . This world is not for aye: nor ’tis not strange That even our loves should with our fortunes change. . . . . . . . . The great man down, you mark his favorite flies; The poor advanced makes friends of enemies. . . . . . . . . For who not needs shall never lack a friend; And who in want a hollow friend doth try, Directly seasons him his enemy.
The _constancy_ of Hamlet’s father is throughout opposed to the inconstancy of his mother. The Ghost on his first appearance dwells on the subject:
From me, whose love was of that dignity That it went hand in hand even with the vow I made to her in marriage.
And after all the wrongs he has suffered, whilst enjoining upon Hamlet to change his course, he charges him to contrive nothing against his mother; and when he afterward appears at the interview between Hamlet and the queen, he interposes in her behalf: